The shift, PJ Lhuillier Services Corp. president and chief executive officer Jean Henri D. Lhuiller said in an interview, should help the company achieve greater efficiency and a larger share of the remittance market down the line.

Already, he said, the company asked the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to permit it to extend a number of financial services in the manner first exploited by rivals Globe Telecom and Smart Communications with their GCash and Smart Money brands.

“Once we get the license from the BSP, our clients will be able to do a number of transactions via their cellular phones,” Lhuillier said.

For now, Cebuana Lhuillier clients have to satisfy themselves with what is possible under a recently forged agreement with the home grown mobile phone maker My/Phone, such as inquiries on loan status or schedule, inquiries on remittance rates, top up phone credits or load, bills payments including tuition on two local colleges for the moment or make premium payments for insurance, donate to a charity or pay for online purchases.

But with the BSP license, Cebuana Lhuillier may act as payout agent for a number of remittance companies besides the one it is operating.

According to Lhuillier, the mobile phone component should complement the services it has forged with Zoom Technologies which have been providing them with the telecommunications products they need in the internet space for maybe three years now.

“So all of these services should be available both online and in the form of SMS,” Lhuillier said.

He related PJCS once tried to forge a partnership with the Philippine Postal Corp. and mine its wealth of relationships with more than 1,000 local government units across the country.

The intent was to boost the state-owned firm’s snail mail services with new technology solutions such as had been done by the Land Bank of the Philippines in recently partnering with a privately-held postal corporation in Japan.

“We tried to do that here but have not been successful. Privately held couriers are easier to deal with than state-owned,” Lhuillier said.

The Land Bank model seeks to tap the remittance potential of rural Japan-based overseas Filipinos who often have to travel hours or leave work temporarily to get to a remittance office.

Privately-owned postal units in Japan could be everywhere in that country and remain open on a 24/7 basis.